In 2013, the European Parliament earmarked a budget for a pilot implementation of the Media Pluralism Monitor (MPM). This tool was initially developed by a consortium lead by the KUL University. The European Commission awarded subsequently a grant to the Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom (CMPF) at the European University Institute, to update, simplify and conduct a pilot-test implementation of the MPM.
The Centre reduced the scope of application of the MPM to news and current affairs and further simplified the risk indicators. The Centre pilot tested the Monitor in a sample of nine EU countries. The list of the sampled countries includes: Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy and the UK.
The aim of the MPM, as a measurement tool, is to assess the risks to media pluralism in the country monitored. The results of the pilot-test implementation therefore show a provisional assessment of the risk to media pluralism through different risk domains in the selected countries.
According to the CMPF, the analysis of the results from this test-implementation proved to be very useful, in particular in order to further enhance the tool in terms of applicability, universality and comparability.
It is expected that the 19 remaining EU Member States will be part of a forthcoming testing of the MPM tool.
The simplification and pilot testing of the MPM were undertaken independently by the CMPF and the report does not reflect the views of the European Commission.
The results of the 2014 MPM are available here.
The CMPF policy report is available here.